George,

Racial profiling is wrong. Say ... if a police officer were to say, "stop all black men that drive by a check point because we think a black guy did it." Now that kind profiling is wrong. However, If a police officer says, "we believe a black man driving a red corvette is the suspect, so stop all black young men in red corvettes." This is not wrong. The same would hold true if the police department thought the perpetrator was white, black or Hispanic and in a corvette.

This said the term racial profiling is kind of vague. I am thankfully not too familiar with how police profile potential suspects. It sure is a tough question if they have data that points out that types of crimes tend to be perpetrated by a certain race, especially when that race is black. And...especially when there are fewer of that race in the general population. I can see how it would be a quick way to waddle down suspects. I can also see how it could completely violate civil liberties and send the wrong men to death row.

The real issue as that all of us black, white, liberal, conservative, straight, gay or whatever make snap judgments by the way a person looks. And, by and large our judgments are somewhere "in the ball park." It is how we act on those judgments and how we perceive those people for what they look like. Is it bad for preppy, white Tyler Sewell to notice a black kid dressed up in hip-hop clothing walking down the street and think to himself, now why would you wear that? Not really, we all do it in one form of another. It is human nature. It is bad for Tyler to look at that black kid dressed up in hip-hop clothing and think that I am better than him.

The real tough spot (I wrote about this before) is the perceived senses of fear and ignorance of each other. If I see seven kids dressed up in hip-hop clothing and I stand there in a suit with no other people around am I afraid that the black kids will assume that I am white, rich and therefore a racist? Will they lash out at me? Does having that thought making me racist or just honest?

This whole issue becomes much less controversial when I substitute the black kid with a white Goth kid. Right?

Ohhh and yes ... I get the irony of white guy who has never been profiled waxing on the subject. Hell I bet the term "hip-hop clothing" is some sort of sterotype I am ignorant of. But I have been profiled as a right wing wacko.

Tyler Sewell (electronic mail, February 17, 2004)